effectcraft/docs/parity.md

Parity with After Effects

How close EffectCraft is to After Effects 2026, feature by feature, and how much work is left.

Current status (audit at commit 58163a2, 3 October 2026, evening)

Measure	Value
Feature parity, weighted by tier (P0 ×3, P1 ×2, P2 ×1)	≈ 98% counting every partial feature as half done; ≈ 99.6% using per-feature fractions
Unweighted	≈ 97% (half-credit) / 99% (fractions)
P0 / P1 / P2	≈ 99% / 96% / 90% (half-credit); 99.8% / 99.2% / 97.5% (fractions)
Features done / partial / missing	87 / 5 / 0 of 92
Effects	306 effects (all After Effects 2026 effects), every one implemented in full (effects.md); 196 run on the GPU
Disabled menu entries left	1, on purpose: Import ▸ Vanishing Point (.vpe), whose format has no public specification
Remaining work	≈ 9–11 agent-hours at the pace measured so far (≈ 29 on the conservative audit scale); ≈ 6–7 without the learned-model items
Wall-clock estimate	≈ 2–2.5 hours with five agents in parallel; ≈ 1.5 hours for 100% of P0 + P1

Partial features:

id	Tier	Done	What is missing
EFF-5 GPU effects	P1	0.85	GPU kernels for the CC light / transition families, Numbers and Timecode, 3D Channel, the VR family, OCIO / LUT, Time effects and the simulations; Advanced 3D runs with blend modes, track mattes or environment backgrounds composite on the CPU
WEB-1 Web app	P0	0.97	GPU effects in Render Queue / analysis job workers (they render on their CPU); layer buffers in the browser's disk cache (frames only); threads inside one engine instance (the decided design is one engine instance per worker; a threaded build needs nightly build-std). M13.24 added GPU effects and the GPU compositor in the frame workers (their own WebGPU devices, deferred readbacks: frames render in passes; Backend Auto per comp), the disk cache in the Origin Private File System (written by the workers with sync access handles, LRU under the settings' limit, served after a reload), the storage manager (Settings ▸ Disk ▸ Browser Storage, storage.*) and fixed a WGSL constant Chrome rejected (it disabled every GPU kernel in Chrome)
UI-7 Home screen	P1	0.95	A "start from a template" gallery
MSK-4 Roto Brush	P2	0.85	Segmentation is classical (graph cut + optical flow), not a learned model
TRK-3 Face tracking	P2	0.9	Classical fitter: weak on profile and occluded faces; Rolling Shutter Ripple is approximated

Since the previous audit, M9.13 completed all 42 simplified effects; M13.4 added HEVC and AV1 export and Opus SILK / hybrid; M13.5 the Learn tab and Extended Viewer; M13.6 and M13.12 text, images, shadings and transparency groups in PDF/AI/EPS import, variable fonts and PSD warps; M13.7 ScriptUI resource strings, onDraw and Socket, Essential Graphics scripting hooks and the last menu items; M13.8 the Preview panel, Align to Selection / Distribute and Advanced 3D iris depth of field, collapsed precomps and extruded strokes; M13.9 and M13.13 107 more GPU effects, a texture pool and per-comp CPU/GPU choice; M13.10 render workers in the browser and visual editors for curves and palettes; M13.11 Advanced 3D on the GPU and Essential Graphics mirrors; M13.14–M13.20 puppet pin editing and rigging; M13.15 end-to-end tests through MCP and the CLI; M13.21 lazy project open, virtualised panels, background auto-save and an audit that every command is reachable over MCP, the control channel and the CLI; M13.24 GPU effects in the browser's frame workers, the browser disk cache (OPFS) and a storage manager.

Out of clean-room scope (no public specification or no permissively licensed data): .jsxbin, Vanishing Point .vpe, the predefined CJK CMaps in PDF import, Kodak film emulations. Adobe service integrations (Team Projects, Libraries, Media Encoder, Dynamic Link, Frame.io, Exchange) and third-party plug-ins (Cinema 4D, Mocha) are intentionally absent.

Previous audit (commit 978e8d7, 3 October 2026): ≈ 94%

80 done / 12 partial / 0 missing.

Previous audit (commit fa26ad9, 2 October 2026, late): ≈ 93%

By area: Layers 98%, Output 95%, Compositions 95%, Automation 96%, Paint 95%, Text 95%, Import 96%, Animation 94%, Masks 94%, Preview 94%, Interface 93%, Shapes 93%, 3D 91%, Audio 90%, Project 90%, Tracking 96%, Effects 85%, Web 65%.

What is left, in priority order: the web app's depth (threads, storage, audio, non-blocking renders); stroke taper/wave and multi-segment dashes; variable mask feather points; camera iris/bokeh and focus-link commands; approximated effects (Key Cleaner) and Liquify's viewer brush; JPX / JBIG2 images in imported PDF/AI files (mesh shadings and CCITT landed in M13.12) and Illustrator procset EPS; and codec depth (B-frames, SAO/CDEF; HEVC and AV1 export and Opus SILK/hybrid landed in M13.4). Face tracking and a true Subspace Warp landed in M13.3. ScriptUI (dialogs that block show(), palettes, dockable ScriptUI panels, File ▸ Scripts install and sample scripts), puppet pin recording and the remaining "better than After Effects" items — a versioned effect plug-in API with sandboxed WebAssembly plug-ins (plugins.md), branching undo history in the History panel, and a bit-identical rendering test across runs and thread counts — landed in M13.1 (GPU particles landed in M12.7). Render Queue field render, crop/resize, templates and logs, and VP9 inter frames landed in M10.2.

The sections below are the original audit (morning of 2 October, ≈ 64%) and its updates, kept for history.

Summary

Measure	Value
Feature parity, weighted by tier (P0 ×3, P1 ×2, P2 ×1)	≈ 64%
Feature parity, unweighted	≈ 58%
P0 (it isn't After Effects without it)	≈ 75%
P1 (professional daily use)	≈ 38%
P2 (long tail)	≈ 17%
Features done / partial / missing	18 / 60 / 14 of 92
Effects	298 of 298 After Effects 2026 effects by name (100%, after M9.11, Warp Stabilizer and the 3D Camera Tracker; was 257)
Remaining work	≈ 167 agent-hours (139 h of features + ≈ 20% for 1:1 polish against After Effects)
Wall-clock estimate	≈ 42–50 hours with five agents working in parallel and one integrating; ≈ 31–35 h for P0 + P1 only

"Agent-hours" are hours of one autonomous coding agent (Claude Opus 5.5) working in its own git worktree with tests. The estimate is calibrated on this repository's own history: Classic 3D (cameras, lights, shadows, depth of field, views, tools) took one agent about 2.7 h; timeline depth (graph editor, keyframe dialogs, time remapping, pen and masks) about 2.3 h; 85 effects about 1.2 h; the After Effects menu bar about 1.3 h; layer styles about 0.6 h; the web build about 0.8 h. What is left is harder on average (tracking, roto, puppet, GPU, Advanced 3D), and sequential chains (tracker → mask tracking → Warp Stabilizer → 3D camera tracker; GPU compositor → GPU effects) limit how much can run in parallel.

Work in progress at the time of the audit, not yet counted: motion tracking, preferences and the keyboard shortcut editor, auto-save and crash recovery, paint and puppet tools, Lottie import and export.

Update after the second wave (same day, commit e1f7241)

Motion tracking (1-, 2- and 4-point, stabilize, corner pin), paint (Brush, Clone Stamp, Eraser with write-on) and the puppet tools, preferences, a keyboard shortcut editor that rebinds, auto-save and crash recovery, Lottie import and export, Effect Controls widgets (angle dial, point crosshair, eyedropper, curves and levels editors, effect copy/paste) and 20 more menu commands landed. Re-scoring only the features they touch:

Measure	Before	After
Feature parity, weighted	63.7%	≈ 70%
P0 / P1 / P2	75% / 38% / 17%	78% / 56% / 17%
Remaining, audit estimate	167 agent-hours	≈ 141 agent-hours

Calibration. The audit priced this wave at about 21 agent-hours; five agents delivered it in about 1.5 hours of wall-clock time (roughly 6 agent-hours of actual work), though some features landed at 80–90% rather than fully done. So the per-feature estimates above are conservative. Remaining wall-clock time with five parallel agents is therefore somewhere between ≈ 12–15 hours at the pace observed so far and ≈ 35–40 hours if the audit's figures hold. The hardest remaining systems (Roto Brush, Warp Stabilizer, the 3D camera tracker, Advanced 3D, GPU rendering, on-canvas text editing) are where the conservative figure is most likely to be right.

Update at the end of 2 October 2026

A third wave landed: viewer interactions (snapping, rulers, channels, exposure, snapshots, region of interest, shape pen and pen-tool family, motion-path handles, graph editor transform box), on-canvas text editing with per-character styles and paragraph settings, render fidelity (8/16/32 bpc, Rec.709/Rec.2020/P3 working spaces and linear blending, frame blending with optical flow, collapse transformations, slip edits), a GPU compositor with 16 GPU effects, Wiggler/Smoother/ Motion Sketch, the marker dialog, precompose options and the comp navigator, Project panel folder moves/rename/columns/thumbnails, drag-and-drop docking with floating panels, and the tracking library groundwork for mask tracking and Warp Stabilizer.

Measure	Morning	Now
Feature parity, weighted	63.7%	≈ 79%
Unweighted	57.8%	≈ 74%
P0 / P1 / P2	75% / 38% / 17%	87% / 67% / 21%
Remaining (audit-scale agent-hours)	≈ 167	≈ 100
Wall clock, five parallel agents	42–50 h	≈ 8–10 h at today's measured pace; ≈ 25 h by the audit's conservative figures

What is left is concentrated in large systems: the Warp Stabilizer and mask-tracking UI on top of the new tracking library, and wasm threads. (The missing effect categories, 3D Channel, Immersive Video and OCIO, landed in M9.11; the scripting object model in M14.4; Roto Brush and Refine Edge in M6.7; native macOS menus, the Composition Flowchart, Timeline column/search depth, the Home screen and every After Effects workspace in the UI-polish wave; PSD/SVG import, WebM/WAV/AIFF output and the disk cache in the formats wave; the 3D Camera Tracker in M12.6.)

By area

Area	Weighted parity	Remaining (agent-hours)	Biggest gaps
Layers	88%	4.8	frame blending, collapse transformations, slip edit
Output	97%	0.8	Render Settings complete (field render + 3:2 pulldown, effects/solo/guide/depth/blending/blur overrides, time sampling, storage overflow), Output Module crop/ROI/resize, alpha modes, post-render actions, PCM formats, templates with defaults, render logs, Notify (M10.2); WebM VP9 key + inter frames with motion search, loop filter and rate control; M13.4: HEVC export (MP4 hvc1, effectcraft-hevcenc: Main / Main 10, IDR + P slices, quarter-pel motion, deblocking, bit-exact with ffmpeg) and AV1 export (MP4 av01 and WebM, effectcraft-av1enc: 8/10-bit key + inter frames, quarter-pel motion, loop filter, bit-exact with libdav1d) with profile, level, bitrate / constant-quality and key-frame interval options; Opus SILK (NB/MB/WB, mid/side stereo) and hybrid (SWB/FB) modes chosen by bitrate and Audio/Voice tuning, with the Opus bitrate in the Output Module. HEVC/AV1 import decodes through FilmCraft (MP4/MOV/MKV/WebM). Left: HEVC/AV1 have no B-frames, multi-reference, SAO/CDEF/restoration or alpha (compression below mature encoders); Opus has no FEC/DTX and only 20 ms frames; Photoshop sequence output, overflow for movies only checks at file creation
Audio	85%	0.5	audio to keyframes
Import	97%	0.5	JPX / JBIG2 images and predefined non-Identity CJK CMaps inside PDF/AI files, Illustrator EPS relying on Adobe procsets, PSD 3D layers (M13.12: mesh shadings — free-form / lattice Gouraud triangles, Coons and tensor patches — and function-based shadings, CCITT G3 / G4 images, knockout / isolated transparency groups with group alpha and soft masks on the group's result, /W2 vertical metrics, EPS text with embedded Type 1 / CFF or bundled fonts, and Create Shapes from Vector Layer keeping images as parented footage layers in paint order; M13.6: PDF/AI text with embedded TrueType / CFF / Type 1 / Type 3 fonts and standard-14 fallback to the bundled fonts, Flate / DCT / inline / stencil images with soft masks, Indexed and ICC alternates, luminosity / alpha soft masks, the 16 blend modes, tiling patterns, calculator functions, any page via file.import page and the Import dialog, clip groups kept by Create Shapes from Vector Layer as layer masks / Merge Paths; PSD smart-object perspective quads and placed-layer warps — named styles and custom quilt meshes — baked as placed; PDF / PDF-compatible AI / EPS vector footage with Continuously Rasterize, layered composition import and Create Shapes from Vector Layer, and PSD smart objects with embedded files landed in M13.2; PSD as footage/composition/retain layer sizes, SVG footage earlier)
Automation	≈ 99%	0.1	.jsxbin (AUT-2: concave / self-intersecting onDraw fills, real images in drawImage, image controls and icon buttons landed in M13.11; ScriptUI resource strings, onDraw/ScriptUIGraphics, live onChanging, Socket, Essential Graphics hooks — addToMotionGraphicsTemplate(As), canAddToMotionGraphicsTemplate, exportAsMotionGraphicsTemplate, motionGraphicsTemplateName, controller count/names — and Watch Folder landed in M13.7; the core object model landed in M14.4; ScriptUI windows/dialogs/dockable panels with scriptui.* agent commands, File ▸ Scripts install + sample scripts, and the effect plug-in API (EFF-6, WebAssembly) landed in M13.1)
Shapes	≈ 80%	1.5	Lottie can't carry stroke taper/wave (stroke Taper and Wave, Dash 2/Gap 2/Dash 3/Gap 3 and radial-gradient Highlight Length/Angle landed in M13.5; pen tool for shape paths and vertex editing in M6.5)
Compositions	≈ 81%	3.3	Mocha-style planar tracks for templates (CMP-7: Essential Graphics mirrored and linked properties landed in M13.11; Font and uniform Scale controls, Composition ▸ Open in Essential Graphics, Save Frame As ▸ Photoshop Layers / ProEXR and the VR Comp Editor landed in M13.7; the marker dialog, Composition Flowchart, Essential Graphics with master properties, .ectemplate templates and Responsive Design — Time landed: CMP-6, CMP-7)
Animation	70%	9.0	puppet depth beyond pins, recording, rigging and follow-through (puppet pin recording with Record Options landed in M13.1; pin selection, rotate/scale handles, nulls for pins and Follow-Through in M13.14–M13.16), Wiggler/Smoother/Motion Sketch (motion-path handles and the graph editor transform box landed in M5.8; keyframe colour labels and Select Keyframe Label Group, Graph Editor snapping to markers / layer ends in M13.5)
Text	≈ 96%	0.3	no extruded strokes (M13.12: the Variable Font Axes animator re-spaces the text — advances follow the animated axes; M13.6: variable font axes in the character style — layer.setText variations, the Character panel's Variable Font Axes fields — shape with HVAR / gvar advances and draw at that design-space position; OpenType features — stylistic sets, discretionary ligatures, contextual / stylistic alternates, swash, titling, ordinals, fractions, figure styles, true small caps / all small caps and superior / inferior glyphs with faux fallback — per character with the Character panel's OpenType popup and text.fontFeatures landed in M13.2; vertical Roman / Tate-Chu-Yoko, forced LTR paragraphs, caret on animated and path text, Variable Font Axes and Lottie style runs landed in M13.5; extruded, bevelled text in M7.6; per-character styles, paragraph settings, on-canvas editing and the sourceText style API in M9.9–M9.10)
Web	97%	0.2	GPU effects in Render Queue / analysis workers (job workers render on their CPU), layer buffers in the browser's disk cache (frames only), no shared-memory threads inside one engine instance (the decided design is one engine instance per worker; a threaded build needs nightly build-std) (browser storage, Web Audio, Web Worker renders/analyses, WebGPU viewer and offline install landed in M15.2; viewer frames in frame workers fed by project diffs, Roto Brush propagation in a worker, non-blocking wait: true jobs and a browser Media Browser (File System Access folders, browser storage) in M13.10; WEB-1 in M13.24: GPU effects and the GPU compositor in the frame workers on their own WebGPU devices with deferred readbacks (frames render in passes; Backend Auto per comp), the disk cache in the Origin Private File System (written by the workers with sync access handles, LRU under the settings' limit, served after a reload), the storage manager (Settings ▸ Disk ▸ Browser Storage, storage.info / storage.persist / storage.clear), and a WGSL constant Chrome rejected (it disabled every GPU kernel in Chrome) fixed)
3D	88%	5.5	multi-view layouts, the Extended Viewer for Advanced 3D comps (Classic 3D Extended Viewer landed in M13.5 UI completion); collapsed precomps of another size seen through the parent's camera render (fixed in M13.2); stereo rigs, orbit nulls, lights controlled by the camera, cameras/lights from glTF models, environment backgrounds, Advanced 3D motion blur, blend modes and track mattes landed in M7.7; Classic 3D iris-shaped bokeh with highlights, progressive depth of field on tilted layers and the focus-link commands landed in M13.5; Advanced 3D depth of field with the iris and highlight options, collapsed precomps as real Advanced 3D geometry and extruded text/shape strokes landed in M13.8; Advanced 3D (glTF/OBJ models, primitives, extruded text and shapes, PBR, image-based light, shadow maps, GPU rasteriser) in M7.4–M7.6; Advanced 3D end to end on the GPU (motion blur, iris depth of field, compositing) in M13.11
Effects	≈ 85%	3.0	GPU versions of the remaining effects (196 run on the GPU since M13.22, EFF-5: the CC light family, the CC transitions, Block Dissolve, Radial Shadow, CC Bender / Blobbylize / Cylinder / Sphere / Spotlight / Environment, 3D Glasses, Numbers, Timecode and the time effects joined the 166 of M13.13; simulations, 3D channel, VR, audio-driven, OCIO and Card Wipe still render on the CPU) and the missing controls listed as partial in effects.md (every After Effects effect exists since M9.11, M12.5 and M12.6; parameter names, order, twirl-downs, popups, units and defaults were aligned in M9.12)
Interface	75%	5.0	more Learn tutorials and pixel-level fidelity of dialogs (the Home ▸ Templates gallery (eight original built-in templates, user templates from File ▸ Save as Template…) and View ▸ Simulate Output ▸ My Custom RGB… landed in M13.25; Timeline layer reordering by drag, a non-snapping viewer pan, a working rename field and twirl arrows, and the full set of property reveal shortcuts — double presses, Alt+Shift keyframes, Ctrl+` — landed in M13.17–M13.20; the Home ▸ Learn tab with interactive tutorials and a UI fidelity pass landed in M13.5 UI completion; visual editors for Lumetri RGB / hue-saturation curves, Colorama's output cycle wheel, Glow's colour map and Reshape's correspondence points (viewer handles), a scrolling Preview panel and AE-style Composition / Timeline tabs (close, label swatch, viewer lock) landed in M13.10; Timeline outline and Project panel columns scroll horizontally, the Layer Style dialog, ROI resize handles, Pan Behind snapping and 3D Reference Axes landed in M13.5; native macOS menu bar, Timeline columns/search/reveal-add, Home screen with recent projects and all AE workspaces landed; viewer rulers/snapping/channels/snapshots landed in M0.13)
Project	≈ 68%	5.5	auto-save, folder moves, OCIO displays beyond the built-in tone map (Color Engine with OCIO/ACES working spaces, HDR compand/tone mapping, Rec. 2100 PQ/HLG output, Feet + Frames, display colour management, Simulate Output and the locked viewer landed in M7.7; proxies and Interpret Footage fields / pixel aspect / alpha guess landed: PRJ-8, PRJ-3)
Masks & roto	74%	5.0	Roto Brush's learned (3.0) segmentation model (variable-width mask feather points with the Mask Feather tool landed in M13.5; mask tracking and Mask Interpolation landed in M6.6; Roto Brush & Refine Edge with graph-cut segmentation, flow propagation, edge matting, decontamination and Freeze in M6.7)
Preview	77%	2.8	GPU effects for simulations, 3D channel, VR, OCIO and Card Wipe (Advanced 3D layers with blend modes / track mattes / Preserve Transparency and environment backgrounds composite on the GPU since M13.22; pooled GPU textures and fused quantisation since M13.13: Lower Third GPU warm 21 → 4 ms/frame, and Auto now picks the CPU or the GPU per comp from measured frame times; Advanced 3D runs — raster, motion blur, iris depth of field, compositing — and wireframes run on the GPU since M13.11: CPU warm 3394 → GPU warm 290 ms/frame at 1920×1080 (11.7×; Half 968 → 85 ms), GPU ≠ CPU on 0.005 % of pixels, on an M4 Pro under load; Classic 3D bokeh depth of field — iris shapes, highlights, fringe, progressive blur on tilted planes — runs in WGSL since M13.6: 3D Showcase GPU warm 205 → 54 ms/frame at full size on an M4 Pro; the Preview panel's five shortcuts with their own Include / Loop / Cache Before Playback / Range / Play From / Frame Rate / Skip / Resolution / Full Screen / stop options and playback.settings.get/set landed in M13.8; Classic 3D runs and adjustment layers composite on the GPU since M12.7; persistent disk cache with the blue cache bar landed; region of interest, snapshots, exposure and Fast Previews landed in M0.13)
Tracking	≈ 96%	0.3	face tracking is a classical (skin model + feature components + shape model) fitter, not a learned detector: profile views and occluded faces are weak; Rolling Shutter Ripple is approximated by Subspace Warp's mesh density (face tracking (Outline Only / Detailed Features with Face Track Points and Extract & Copy Face Measurements), Subspace Warp's content-preserving mesh warp on subspace-smoothed trajectories, and radial lens distortion (k1, k2) in the camera bundle adjustment with Undistort Footage landed in M13.3; Rolling Shutter Repair in M9.11; point tracker, mask tracking, Warp Stabilizer and the 3D Camera Tracker in M6.x / M12.5 / M12.6)
Paint	0%	4.0	Brush, Clone Stamp, Eraser

Effects still missing

The full catalogue with GPU / 32-bpc badges and per-effect status is effects.md (generated from the registry).

None: the 3D Camera Tracker landed in M12.6. Boris FX Mocha and Cineware are third-party and not counted.

Added in M9.11 (39 effects)

Category	Effects	Notes
3D Channel	3D Channel Extract, Cryptomatte, Depth Matte, Depth of Field, EXtractoR, Fog 3D, ID Matte, IDentifier	Read auxiliary channels: multi-layer OpenEXR (any layer.channel, Cryptomatte manifests from the header) or the compositor's own depth / layer-ID / normal / UV / Cryptomatte pass for precomps of 3D comps.
Immersive Video	VR Blur, VR Chromatic Aberrations, VR Color Gradients, VR Converter, VR De-Noise, VR Digital Glitch, VR Fractal Noise, VR Glow, VR Plane to Sphere, VR Rotate Sphere, VR Sharpen, VR Sphere to Plane	Seam-aware equirectangular processing (wrap-around, pole continuation, latitude-scaled filters), mono / over-under / side-by-side layouts; VR Converter between equirectangular, cube maps (4:3, 3:2, 6:1), sphere map and 2D.
Color Correction	OCIO CDL / Color Space / Display / File / Look Transform, Color Stabilizer	Built-in minimal OCIO-style config (ACES2065-1, ACEScg, ACEScct, sRGB, Rec.709, Rec.2020, Display P3, linear variants, XYZ) from published matrices and transfer functions; .cube / .3dl / .csp LUTs and ASC .cc / .ccc / .cdl. Custom .ocio config files are read (Configuration ▸ Custom: colorspaces, roles, displays/views; Matrix, File, Exponent, Log, LogAffine, CDL, Range and Group transforms).
Distort	CC Flo Motion, Liquify, Rolling Shutter Repair	Liquify strokes are effect data replayed into a displacement mesh (liquify.stroke / liquify.clear commands; no interactive viewer brush yet). Rolling Shutter Repair uses the KLT tracker.
Blur & Sharpen	Camera-Shake Deblur, CC Radial Blur	Deblur substitutes aligned patches from sharper neighbouring frames.
Audio	Compressor, Distortion, Gate	Applied in the mixdown like the other audio effects.
Simulation	CC Hair, Particle Playground	Particle Playground: cannon, grid, layer exploder, layer map, gravity, repel, wall, persistent property mapper (no Particle Exploder, text particles or ephemeral mapper yet).
Keying	Key Light	The full Keylight 1.2 control set under a generic name ("Keylight" is a vendor trademark); lookup("Keylight (1.2)") finds it.
Utility	Color Profile Converter	Our colour spaces and ACES; rendering intents (perceptual gamut compression, relative / absolute colorimetric, saturation).
Matte	Mocha shape	Mocha's export format is not public: reads a documented JSON shape format instead.

Update: M13.5 long-tail polish

Stroke Taper / Wave / multi-segment dashes and the radial gradient highlight (SHP-2); variable-width mask feather points (MSK-1; mask motion blur verified by tests); the Adaptive Sample Limit driving per-layer motion-blur samples (LYR-10); Classic 3D depth of field with the camera's iris shape, rotation, roundness, aspect ratio, diffraction fringe and highlights, progressive blur on tilted layers, and Link Focus Distance to Point of Interest / to Layer and Set Focus Distance to Layer (3D-1); Timeline outline and Project panel column scrolling; keyframe colour labels and Select Keyframe Label Group (ANM-1); vertical Roman text, Tate-Chu-Yoko, forced LTR paragraphs, the editing caret on animated / path text and Lottie style runs; the Layer Style dialog (LYR-9); Graph Editor snapping to markers and layer ends (ANM-4; the reference graph existed); viewer ROI resize handles, Pan Behind snapping and 3D Reference Axes; Animate Text ▸ Variable Font Axes. Remaining in these rows: Lottie can't carry taper/wave (the Variable Font Axes animator changes advances since M13.12, the Character panel's axes since M13.6; Advanced 3D's DOF has iris shapes since M13.8).

Update: M13.8 Preview panel, Align panel, Advanced 3D completion

• Preview panel (PRV-1): Shortcut popup (Spacebar, Shift+Spacebar, Numpad 0, Shift+Numpad 0, Alt+Numpad 0), each shortcut with its own saved options (settings preview): Include Video / Audio / Overlays / Layer Controls, Loop, Cache Before Playback, Range (Work Area, Work Area Extended By Current Time, Entire Duration, Play Around Current Time with pre/post roll), Play From (Range Start / Current Time), Frame Rate (Auto or a rate), Skip, Resolution (Auto, Full … Quarter, Custom), Full Screen, "If caching, play cached frames" and "Move time to preview time". playback.settings.get/set; playback follows the plan (range, start, skip grid, rate, loop, cache-first, audio-only, resolution override, hidden overlays / layer controls, maximized viewer); the keys trigger their shortcut (playback.toggle {shortcut?}, playback.ramPreview, playback.preview.shiftSpacebar|shiftNumpad0|altNumpad0). Full Screen maximizes the Composition panel rather than taking over the display.
• Align panel (UI-1): layer.align {edge, to: composition|selection} and layer.distribute {mode} (edges or centres) on content bounds through transform and parents, one undo step; Align Layers to dropdown and the Distribute Layers row.
• Advanced 3D (3D-3): depth of field with the camera's iris and highlight options (the Classic 3D bokeh kernel, by each pixel's depth); collapsed precomps add their nested layers as real geometry lit by the parent (2D collapsed precomps draw nested 3D layers with the parent's renderer); text and shape strokes extrude as bevelled meshes in paint order.

Update: M13.22 GPU effects, part A

• GPU ports (EFF-5): 30 more effects run on the GPU (196 GPU effects), each matching the CPU oracle within 1/255 (8 bpc) / 1e-3 (32 bpc) on every tested pixel, directly on a buffer (full and half resolution, as adjustment) and composited at 8 and 32 bpc:
  • the CC light family: CC Light Rays, CC Light Burst 2.5, CC Light Sweep, CC Light Wipe (gpu::fx_light);
  • transitions and perspective (gpu::fx_transition): Block Dissolve (block indices computed on the CPU per column / row sub-sample, so the hash sees the CPU's integers), CC Glass Wipe, CC Grid Wipe, CC Image Wipe, CC Jaws, CC Line Sweep, CC Radial ScaleWipe, CC Scale Wipe, CC Twister, CC WarpoMatic, Radial Shadow, CC Bender, CC Blobbylize, CC Cylinder, CC Sphere, CC Spotlight, CC Environment, 3D Glasses; other layers they read (gradient, reveal, backside, environment, stereo views) are fitted on the CPU and uploaded;
  • Numbers and Timecode (gpu::fx_text): the glyph coverage (fill and stroke ring) is rasterised on the CPU with the effect's own stroke font and composited on the GPU with the box, fill and stroke;
  • time (gpu::fx_time): Time Difference, Time Displacement, CC Force Motion Blur, CC Wide Time, Pixel Motion Blur and Timewarp fetch their frames through the host as Echo does and combine them on the GPU (weighted sums one frame per pass, in the CPU's order); Time Displacement's per-pixel times and Timewarp's motion vectors (block matching and smoothing) are computed on the CPU, Timewarp's Whole Frames / Frame Mix / Pixel Motion frame building and shutter average on the GPU.
• Fallbacks and deviations: Timewarp with a Matte Layer renders on the CPU (gpu_supported); Card Wipe (the 3D card renderer shared with Card Dance and Shatter) and the 3D Camera Tracker stay on the CPU. CC Environment now fades nearly transparent environment texels to black continuously (colour / max(alpha, 1e-3), on both paths) instead of a hard 1e-6 un-premultiply cut-off, which turned the filtered map's float noise into colour. CC Sphere / CC Environment keep their longitude on the side of the ±180° seam the ray's sign puts it (a GPU's approximate atan2 can land across it).
• Advanced 3D compositing on the GPU (3D-3, PRV-3): runs with blend modes, track mattes (2D, or 3D mattes drawn through the camera) or Preserve Transparency no longer read back: Renderer::split_adv_run hands draw_run's split path to the GPU (main scene, then each special layer far to near, hidden behind the nearer main scene and composited through the 2D kernels), and Environment Light Background skies draw in a kernel in Classic and Advanced 3D comps. The GPU walk matches the CPU compositor on the same rasters exactly at 8 and 32 bpc, with only the frame's own readback.

Update: M13.13 GPU performance and the remaining GPU ports

• Small comps on the GPU (PRV-3): the GPU frame allocated (and zero-initialised) several full-frame RGBA f32 textures per layer; working textures now come from a pool (reused once every encoder that could read them is submitted), transparent inputs share one zero texture, readback staging buffers are reused and the 8/16 bpc quantisation after each layer is fused into the layer's composite. bench --gpu on an M4 Pro under load (both binaries run back to back, median of 15): Lower Third 1920×1080 GPU warm 21.0 → 4.1 ms/frame (viewer 11.1 → 2.6; Half 10.1 → 3.1), EffectCraft Intro 27.5 → 7.8 (viewer 21.7 → 3.6), 3D Showcase ≈ 95 → ≈ 60 (viewer ≈ 80 → ≈ 40), Adjustment Layers 93 → 36. In steady state the only transfer left is the frame's own readback (0.0 MB uploads per frame on every demo comp; the adjustment footprint is now cached and uploaded once).
• Auto picks per comp: Backend::Auto (Mercury GPU Acceleration) times each comp on both compositors (render::AutoPick: per comp, scale and path; warm-up, capped stalls, re-probe every 48 frames) and renders on the faster one, in renders and in the viewer. A light comp stays on the CPU, which composites only the layers' bounds: Lower Third Auto 0.8 ms/frame (CPU warm 1.7, GPU warm 4.1, which is mostly the 32 MB readback).
• GPU ports (EFF-5): Warp, Bezier Warp, Reshape, Smear, CC Bend It, CC Page Turn, Cartoon, Color Emboss, Circle, Ellipse, Iris Wipe, Bevel Alpha, Bevel Edges and Gaussian Blur (Legacy) run on the GPU (166 GPU effects); Median, Median (Legacy) and Dust & Scratches take any radius (a sliding 512-bin histogram per row segment above radius 4); CC Power Pin's Perspective below 100 % runs on the GPU. All match the CPU oracle within 1/255 (8 bpc) / 1e-3 (32 bpc) on every tested pixel except: Smear and Reshape allow 0.1 % (f32 point-in-outline tests on boundary pixels; measured 0); Warp's Fisheye and Twist bent past 50 % or with a Horizontal / Vertical Distortion render on the CPU (gpu_supported), since their Newton inverse wanders chaotically near the crease and f32 settles on other pixels.

Update: M13.11 Advanced 3D on the GPU, Essential Graphics mirrors, ScriptUI paint

• Advanced 3D on the GPU (PRV-3, 3D-3): a whole Advanced 3D run renders on the device (gpu::adv3d, Renderer::prepare_adv_run, Accelerator::render_3d): every motion-blur sub-sample's scene is rasterised (depth buffer, PBR, image-based light, shadow maps), then compute kernels resolve the 2×2 supersampling, average the sub-samples (nearest depth), apply the depth-based iris depth of field (the Classic 3D bokeh row spans and prefix-sum gather, highlight boost, progressive levels) and composite over the GPU canvas without a readback. Meshes from extruded text and shapes, cards, glTF models and collapsed precomps all go through it. Layers with blend modes, track mattes or Preserve Transparency (and environment backgrounds) keep the CPU's 2D compositing path, their scenes still rendered by render_3d. Wireframe-quality outlines draw on the GPU (exactly the CPU's pixels). The CPU stays the oracle: GPU-vs-CPU tests on lit scenes with shadows, environment light, DOF (hexagon with fringe and highlights, Fast Rectangle, radii at the 48 px cap), motion blur, extrusions and collapsed precomps agree within 1/255 on ≥ 99 % of pixels (measured: ≤ 0.01 %; the rest are silhouette pixels the two rasterisers cover differently), and the GPU post kernels match the CPU post-processing of the same GPU raster on ≥ 99.9 % (measured: all pixels). Fixed on the way: NaN environment lookups for straight up/down normals on Metal (atan2(0, 0)). bench --gpu --adv3d (1920×1080 Advanced 3D comp: PBR primitives, bevelled extruded text, a shadow-casting spot, point and environment lights, hexagonal-iris DOF with highlights, 8-sample motion blur): CPU warm 3394 → GPU warm 290 ms/frame at 1920×1080 (11.7×; Half 968 → 85 ms), GPU ≠ CPU on 0.005 % of pixels, on an M4 Pro under load.
• Essential Graphics mirrors (CMP-7): adding a property that is already in the panel adds a mirror (its own name and place; one value in the comp and in every instance — editing, reverting or pushing either acts on both; Font / Scale as controls mirror per kind); essential.addMirror. A property control can also drive further properties of the comp (essential.linkProperty / unlinkProperty): links follow the main property both ways and take each instance's value. Panel badges and a ⋯ menu (Add Mirror, Link Selected Property, Unlink); addToMotionGraphicsTemplate on a property already present adds a mirror, and mirrors count as controllers.
• ScriptUI (AUT-2): fillPath fills any path (non-zero winding trapezoid tessellation: concave, self-intersecting, holes) instead of egui's convex-only polygons; ScriptUI.newImage / ScriptUIImage hold an image file or embedded PNG/JPEG bytes, drawn by drawImage, image controls and icon buttons; script-host threads are compiled out of the web build (no dead code warnings).

Update: M13.5 UI completion & fidelity

Extended Viewer (Settings ▸ 3D, the viewer's Extended Viewer button, view.extendedViewer): custom 3D views (and the Active Camera view with Draft 3D on) render the visible pasteboard around the comp frame (the frame is outlined) so 3D layers reaching past the frame stay visible; Classic 3D planes project through the offset canvas natively, Advanced 3D comps show the frame only. Home ▸ Learn: three original interactive tutorials (Animate a title, Track and attach, Make a 3D scene) whose steps highlight their UI target by automation id, advance when the user runs the step's command, and can be performed with Show me (learn.list, learn.start, learn.step, learn.stop, learn.state). UI fidelity pass against After Effects 2026 captures: compact 19 pt Timeline / Project rows, flat rows with dark hairlines, dark switch wells, the selected layer / item name in a light cell, label-coloured bars muted toward grey, the time navigator with blue end handles and the work area bar (with the cache bar under it) below the ruler, open twirl chevrons, a 16 pt current-time display, the workspace bar order (Default, Review, Learn, Small Screen, Standard) and a single breadcrumb row above the viewer. Not yet: Composition Settings / Render Queue / Settings dialogs compared pixel by pixel (no reference captures of them yet).

Update: M13.6 panels and content tools

The last placeholder panels became real panels with automation ids: Lumetri Scopes (waveform RGB / Luma / YC, vectorscope YUV / HLS, histogram, parade RGB / YUV; Rec. 601 / 709 / 2020, 8-bit or float scale, clamp; scopes.analyze), Footage (double-click footage: its own time ruler, play, In/Out, Overlay Edit and Ripple Insert Edit; footage.*), Media Browser (desktop file system, favourites, thumbnails, import and drag to the Project panel or timeline; mediaBrowser.*), Metadata (codec, size, rate, duration, colour profile, file dates; item and project comments; item.metadata) and Progress (every render and analysis with progress and cancel; jobs.*). Content-Aware Fill (panel and Layer ▸ New ▸ Content-Aware Fill Layer): Object / Surface / Edge Blend, Work Area / Entire Duration, Alpha Expansion, Lighting Correction and a reference frame from a layer, rendered to a PNG sequence in a Fill layer above the source as a background job. Scene Edit Detection (markers, split, split and precompose), Auto-trace (alpha / RGB / luminance, current frame or work area, to the layer or a new layer) and Align Video to Data (JSON / CSV / TSV time keys) replace their disabled menu entries. Not yet: creating a reference frame by editing a still (After Effects hands it to Photoshop), Content-Aware Fill's learned model (ours is PatchMatch + flow propagation), and Media Browser in the web app (landed in M13.10: browser storage and File System Access folders).

Update: M13.12 import and text leftovers, test hardening

• PDF / AI: mesh shadings — free-form and lattice-form Gouraud triangle meshes (types 4, 5), Coons and tensor-product patch meshes (6, 7, tessellated to triangles) — and function-based shadings (type 1, with multi-input sampled functions), for sh and shading-pattern fills, rasterised into image nodes; CCITT Group 3 (1-D and 2-D) and Group 4 images from ITU-T T.4 / T.6 (checked against an independent encoder's output); knockout and isolated transparency groups, the current alpha / blend mode / soft mask applied to a transparency group XObject's combined result, and blend modes inside clipping groups reaching the backdrop; /W2 / /DW2 vertical metrics and CMap WMode. Not done: JBIG2 images (deferred) and predefined CJK CMaps (no permissively licensed pure-Rust source of the CMap data; Adobe's CMap resources are Adobe assets).
• EPS: text through the PostScript interpreter — findfont / scalefont / makefont / selectfont / setfont, show, ashow, widthshow, awidthshow, xshow / yshow / xyshow, kshow, glyphshow, charpath, stringwidth, re-encoded fonts (definefont copies with a new /Encoding) — with embedded Type 1 and CFF programs or the bundled fonts.
• Create Shapes from Vector Layer: images become PNG footage layers parented to the shape layer, and the shapes between images are split into layers of their own so the stack keeps the document's paint order; soft masks and clipped images are reported.
• Text: the Variable Font Axes animator re-spaces the text (advances at the animated design-space position), not only the outlines.
• Hardening: PDF / EPS parsers survive truncated and corrupted files (fixed an out-of-range stream slice and unbounded PostScript recursion); WebAssembly plug-ins get a memory cap, a manifest length limit and slider schema checks, with tests for missing exports, wrong signatures and versions, fuel exhaustion, traps and bit-identical output; script Socket validates ports, and ScriptUI resource strings accept trailing array commas.

Update: M13.25 Home template gallery, Simulate Output ▸ My Custom RGB

Home ▸ Templates (UI-7; File ▸ New ▸ New Project from Template…): a gallery of eight original built-in project templates authored in code from engine commands — Lower Third, Title Card, Logo Reveal, Kinetic Type, Social Square 1080×1080, Vertical 9:16 Story, Slideshow and 3D Text Orbit — each with Essential Graphics controls on its main comp and a thumbnail rendered by our own renderer the first time the gallery shows it. File ▸ Save as Template… writes the open project as an .ectemplate (the open template container: manifest.json with kind: "project", project.ecproj, poster.png, thumb.txt) into the config Templates folder (in the browser: the settings store); the gallery lists built-in and user templates, user cards can be deleted, and opening any template makes an untitled copy. Commands: templates.list, templates.thumbnail, templates.create, templates.saveAs, templates.delete, file.newFromTemplate; automation ids home.tab.templates, home.templates.<id> / .open / .delete, home.templates.saveCurrent. Not yet: footage used by a saved template is referenced by path, not embedded.

View ▸ Simulate Output ▸ My Custom RGB…: a dialog defines a custom output device by primaries and white point (CIE xy) and a gamma or the sRGB curve, or reads them from an RGB matrix/TRC ICC profile (v2/v4: colorants, wtpt, chad, curv/para tone curves; table and parametric curves are fitted to a gamma unless they are the sRGB curve); the definition is kept in Settings (customRgb) and simulated like the built-in profiles, with Preserve RGB (view.customRgb, view.simulateOutput {profile: "myCustom"}). Generic dialog forms now register form.field.<key>, form.ok and form.cancel automation ids. Not yet: LUT-based (A2B0) ICC profiles.

Highest-value gaps, in order

1. On-canvas text editing and per-character styles (landed: M9.9–M9.10).
2. Effect Controls widgets: angle dial, point crosshair, eyedropper, curves and levels editors.
3. Viewer basics: snapping, rulers, channel view, snapshots, exposure, a drawable region of interest. (M0.13)
4. A GPU (wgpu) compositor, then GPU effects (M12.2: 2D compositing and 16 GPU effects; M12.7: Classic 3D runs, adjustment layers, 58 GPU effects and GPU particles; M13.9: 152 GPU effects).
5. Pen tool for shape paths, shape vertex editing, free transform (M6.5); the Layer viewer.
6. Motion-path handles in the viewer; graph editor transform box and snapping. (M5.8)
7. Point tracking and stabilization (in progress).
8. Frame blending, collapse transformations, slip edit.
9. A real 8/16/32-bit pipeline with linear blending and colour management.
10. Drag-to-dock and floating panels, saved workspaces, native macOS menus.
11. Auto-save, crash recovery, recent projects (in progress).
12. Expression gaps: sampleImage, footage() (landed with data footage, the error bar and the Expression Language menu; the sourceText style API landed in M9.9).
13. Lottie, WebM, SVG and PSD import (landed; a disk cache too).
14. Puppet and paint tools (in progress).
15. Preferences and a shortcut editor that can rebind (in progress); real Wiggler, Smoother and Motion Sketch; the marker dialog.

The engine underneath (keyframes, expressions, shape operators, text animators, Classic 3D, all 38 blend modes, the render queue) is deep. Most of what is missing is interactive tooling in the viewer, settings that are stored but not yet rendered, about 69 menu entries that are still disabled, and the large systems: tracking, puppet, paint and roto (Advanced 3D landed in M7.4–M7.6).